


There’s a space in the stitch

by lesbianjackrackham



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 16:51:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16099784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianjackrackham/pseuds/lesbianjackrackham
Summary: Alana's mother dies. For real this time.





	There’s a space in the stitch

Alana’s staring at the piece of paper when Jacobi walks in, and she doesn’t even notice him until he’s waving a hand in front of her face saying something about dinner.

“My mother died,” she blurts out, interrupting his ramblings of pizza vs. pho.

“Ha ha,” says Jacobi. “You already tried that one over Christmas.”

“No, she. She actually died.”

“Wait, really? How do you know?” Alana hands over the paper and starts to chew a cuticle on her thumb.

“The obituary was mailed to me. Like, actual mail. I don’t even know how they got my address.”

“Who sent it?”

“I have no idea.” Jacobi puts the paper down and looks back at her, frowning.

“Huh,” he says. “Are you. Do you want to blow something up?”

“Is that your response to everything?”

“Yes? No? What about... Do you want to get a drink?”

“Probably? That’s what a person does, in a situation like this, right?”

“Fuck if I know,” says Jacobi. “Okay. I’ll wrap up my shit and then tell Kepler we’re going to raid his liquor cabinet tonight.” Alana scrunches up her nose and touches the piece of newsprint sitting on the desk so it shifts, just a little, under her hand.

“Daniel, do we... _need_ to invite Kepler?”

“I mean, it’s your dead mom,” he shrugs. “But he’ll find out anyway.”

“And I have to drink with him?”

“It’s better than the two of us drinking alone. You remember what happ—” Alana throws a pen at him.

“We’re still not talking about that.”

“Besides, what are you worried about? Crying in front of him?” She snorts.

“I’m not going to cry.”

“Or that you’ll share some weird family story that reveals something personal about yourself? Alana… Do you think there’s really anything he doesn’t know about?”

“Your belief in his omnipotence is kind of gross.” Jacobi throws the pen back. “Fine, okay. But I’m expecting you to stay coherent enough to drag me home later. No weird ‘you and Kepler’ stuff.”

“Who me?”

“Remember my birthday?”

“No.”

“Exactly.”

\---

They cab it to Kepler’s apartment later that night and find him waiting in his living room with beer and scotch. Alana ignores the unlabeled bottles and, after a pause, takes the wide glass tumbler from Kepler and downs half the pour in one go.

“That’s the good stuff,” he says mildly.

“My mom died,” she says, and takes a more polite sip of the remainder. It probably is the good stuff, because Kepler is weird when it comes to whiskey, but she’s never had a taste for it. She never had a taste for alcohol in general until she joined a team of functioning alcoholics, but she appreciates its dual role in the field as an antiseptic or painkiller when they need to emergency dress a wound (though why they can’t just carry medical grade alcohol, she has no idea.)

The whisky’s bitter, but not prohibitively so, and she chases the taste with the rest of her glass before trading it for one of Kepler’s homebrews.

“How many times does she get to use the dead Mom card?” Jacobi asks, settling on the couch next to her and opening his own beer.

“Once more.”

“Two is a weird number.”

“Three is problematic.”

“How?”

Kepler says, “Did I ever tell you about the time I helped raise a family of geese? Why, they followed me around like I was their mother. I even had to teach them how to fly south for the winter!”

She shoots Daniel a look that she hopes says, _“This is a movie. I’ve literally seen this movie and I haven’t seen any movies, is he just getting lazy or are all of his stories movies I haven’t seen?”_

Daniel says, “Amazing, sir,” and she kicks him.

“You don’t have to talk,” Alana says, when Kepler comes up for air.

“Are you asking me not to talk?”

“No, I mean, if you don’t want to talk you don’t have to talk. I don’t need a distraction or anything. Just sitting here is. It’s good.”

Keeper says, after a second, “You know what this reminds me of? I was in Morocco in... Hmm… I think it was ‘03…”

They keep drinking, and Kepler tells two more stories, (or one really long story, she was barely paying attention,) before she interrupts again.

“Hey, Major?” She’s using Daniel as a footrest with her head hanging backwards over the armrest of the couch, half-staring at Kepler’s upside-down form. “Are your parents alive?”

“No.”

“Lucky,” says Jacobi. “Last I heard my dad is still kicking around. I haven’t talked to him in years, but I think he still has like, power of attorney over me.”

“Goddard has power of attorney over you,” says Kepler.

“What, like the whole company?” Kepler doesn’t say anything else, just takes another sip from his glass. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Should I have a will?” Alana asks. “I don’t have a will.” Daniel pushes her feet off and reaches past her for another beer.

“Do you have stuff?”

“I have money. And. Some stuff.”

“I’ll take your stuff.”

“You can’t have it.”

“You should donate your brain. See if anyone in R&D can hook you up so you can run a spaceship or something.”

“If I thought they could pull it off without me,” she mutters, and then tries to drink from her now empty bottle. Daniel reaches around her again and replaces it, and she raises her fresh one high in mock salute, careful not to spill any on Kepler’s annoyingly expensive furniture. (She’d make fun of it more if it wasn’t so fucking comfortable.)

“Hey Alana?” Daniel says, nudging her.

“Yeah?”

“You can have my stuff.”

“I don’t want your stuff.”

“Hey Kepler?”

“No, Jacobi.”

“Dude,” she says, scootching back to sit upright on her knees, “your stuff sucks.”

“Hey!”

“Major, do you have a will?”

“I do.”

“Do we get your stuff?”

“No, Jacobi. But… You both are in my will.”

Alana says, “...You left us to someone, didn’t you.” Kepler smirks.

“Do you think I would leave your next CO to chance? Reese is the only one I trust. _Barely_.”

“That’s… kind of sweet.” Kepler grunts and Alana leans over, folding her arms and resting her elbows on the armrest and balancing her chin on her stacked fingers. “Hey Major?”

“Yes, Dr. Maxwell?”

“I’m going to leave you Jacobi in my will.”

“Hey!”

“He needs to be walked a few times a day, but other than that…”

“Hey, how about neither of you die and nobody leaves me?” Both of them look at Daniel. “In like, a will. Stop putting me in your wills.”

“Aw!” She says, elbowing his shoulder. “You can put me in your will.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“Put me in your will! Put me in your will!”

“Major, make her stop!”

“Stop, or I’m leaving you both to Young.” Alana narrows her eyes.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I might.”

“She’d ruin me. She’d take me out of the field and everyday all I’d do… just building weapons and engines and getting her _coffee_. And with Daniel... She’ll probably just kill him.”

“Fuck this,” Jacobi mutters. “I’m just going to haunt you both.”

\---

Kepler pours them both into a cab after she falls asleep under their soft voices and his ridiculously comfortable couch. And she not as drunk as she’s playing at, but before he pulls away she reaches out to him, touching his forearm with her fingers and says, “Hey.” Kepler’s backlit by a streetlamp, and Alana’s distracted by the halo of light encircling him before remembering who he is and who she is and where they are. He seems just as frozen by the movement as she is; whatever she planned to say dies on her tongue.

“I’m saving it,” she says instead. “The second dead mom card. For later.”

Kepler leads her hand back inside the car and she lets it drop onto her lap. Daniel snores on her shoulder.

“Good night, Dr. Maxwell,” he says, and in the shadows she can see the hint of a smile slide across his face before he closes the door and sends them on their way.

**Author's Note:**

> [art](https://twutch.tumblr.com/image/186146573979) by twunch


End file.
